Navigating Organizational Change with D. Lynn Kelley — Discussing Her Book ‘Change Questions’

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My guest for Episode #488 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is D. Lynn Kelley, Ph.D. She is the author, with John Shook (who has been a guest here many times), of the new book, Change Questions: A Playbook for Effective and Lasting Organizational Change.

Lynn currently serves as a senior advisor to BBH Capital Partners. Following a career highlighted by leadership roles in engineering, supply chain, and continuous improvement in various industries, Kelley retired from Union Pacific Railroad in 2018.

At Union Pacific, she was senior vice president of supply chain and continuous improvement. She was also the executive co-owner of the company's innovation program. Before joining Union Pacific, Kelley was vice president of operational excellence, an officer and a member of the executive leadership team at Textron. 

Kelley holds a PhD in evaluation and research and taught undergraduate and graduate statistics courses. Before becoming a professor, she held the positions of executive vice president and chief operating officer of Doctors Hospital in Detroit.

Lynn's journey into the Lean philosophy began with her exposure to Dr. Deming's principles during her undergraduate studies. This took rooting and bore fruit in a lifetime dedicated to understanding and deploying Lean principles across diverse fields: healthcare, railroads, and everything between. Her intellectual journey culminated in her authoring a book with the renowned John Shook.

In this episode, we discuss Change Questions, change management, employee engagement, leadership, and much more.

Coming soon: Lynn will be presenting a webinar on November 7th, as part of the KaiNexus continuous improvement webinar series that I host.

Questions, Notes, and Highlights:

  • What's your Lean origin story? Or how would you frame it?
  • Applying these ideas early on in hospitals and education? How did people react?
  • Even when we have evidence… that doesn't mean people (or hospitals) automatically accept new / better / best practices – why is that?
  • 20/60/20 curve – Michael Hammer
  • We hear a lot of talk that labels people as being “resistant to change” — what's your reaction to that phrase?
  • Running pilots and getting the bugs out
  • On the cover, it says, “No more flavor of the month” in all caps. Why is that such a widespread problem? If people recognize it… why does that problem still exist?
  • How would you frame the problem statement about change sustainment? Root causes?
  • How did you and John come to work together on the book?
  • Did you meet John when he was still at Toyota? Via Textron and LEI 1990s
  • Applying Lean and Change concepts at Union Pacific – another “we're different” setting? How did you end up there?
  • Is the change not working? Or not working YET?
  • You ask “what is your value-driven purpose?”
  • The need for extrinsic incentives vs intrinsic motivation?

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in its 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

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Episode Summary

Embracing Effective and Lasting Organizational Change: Insights from D Lynn Kelly

Today we discuss the light being shed on the path to organizational change by author D Lynn Kelly. Having penned the book with John Shook, a seasoned guest on this podcast, she draws from a wealth of experience. Her career has taken her from VP of Operational Excellence at Textron to Senior VP of Supply Chain at Union Pacific Railroad. Not to mention serving as an advisor to BBH Capital Partners. But what intriguing insights does she bring to the table?

Beginnings in Lean

Lynn's introduction to Dr. Deming's work began during her undergraduate studies. Exposed to his principles in a hospital setting, she was fascinated. She tried to apply these principles within a hospital during her Master's program. The Lean philosophy was not yet known by that name during these early days.

Interestingly, her journey did not stop there, she continued studying and researching, eventually resulting in her PhD in evaluation and research. In addition to her studies, she taught undergraduate and graduate statistics courses, reaffirming her own understanding of Deming's statistical lean principles.

From Hands-on Experience to Author

Her first-hand experience with Lean principles in diverse fields from healthcare to railroads inspired Kelly to channel her insights into a book. “Change Questions” digs into the pressing matter of implementing changes that achieve lasting effects. Her concept for the book was born from observing Lean approaches sometimes fail, pause, or only succeed after taking off.

Through her book, she encourages readers to ask the right questions in order to increase the probability of success. Furthermore, she advises leaders that not every failure should be seen as a demise, but rather an opportunity to iterate and improve.

Lean Principles in Nontraditional Fields

Applying Lean principles in service industries often presents unique challenges. In education and healthcare, for example, defining the customer can quickly become complicated. Is the customer the doctor, the patient, or the empowering insurance company? Even though the art of medicine is highly valued, studies have shown that standardization often leads to better results.

Implementing changes in organizations is a complex, nuanced process. The human side of change makes navigating these waters even more challenging as not everyone will accept the change readily. Some may resist due to misconception about the change or their role in it. The spectrum of acceptance varies, and understanding this can help in strategizing the roll-out of changes.

Overcoming “Flavor of the Month” Failure

To overcome the common issue of “flavor of the month” failure, Lynn emphasizes the necessity of having leadership support and effective communication. However, she also notes that these alone do not guarantee success. Other factors must be considered, such as infrastructure and reward systems that may work against the change initiative.

Understanding and catering to the nuances of each individual and organizational culture can help transform skeptics into allies. This process may not be easy, especially in healthcare and education where certain ideas and practices are deeply engrained. But by doing so, leaders can create a supportive ecosystem where everyone contributes to sustainable organizational change.

In “Change Questions,” Kelly provides a detailed roadmap to ensure that your organization is not just implementing changes, but doing so in a way that will stick. Listen, engage, and iterate — successful change may be just a well-formulated question away.

Broadening the Scope of Lean Implementation

The inception of Lean implementation wasn't specifically in one field but rather spanned across various sectors, especially in manufacturing systems. D Lynn Kelly gained valuable firsthand experience from diverse fields – from healthcare to railroads – about implementing Lean principles. These all revolved around implementing organizational changes, including inventory reductions, engineering, product and process management, as well as supply chain portals.

Combining Knowledge for Increased Impact

Kelly's pivotal stint at Textron carved out an expansive pathway in her career, particularly under the leadership of the Chairman and CEO. The shared insights and ongoing thinktank sessions with John Shook cultivated a profound understanding of the Lean philosophy. They then fused these experiences into their book to ensure that organizational change wasn't merely implemented, but sustained for the long term.

What should also be underlined is that they wrote the book with a global perspective. As collaborators in the Lean Global Network, they combined extensive research with first-hand experiences and fruitful interactions from hundreds of organizations. This eclectic mix of knowledge created a broad-based yet insightful resource for Lean stakeholders to draw from.

The Importance of Providing Answers

A key highlight that Kelly underscored is not leaving managers or employees in the dark when implementing the change. Grounding this into practical steps, she emphasized providing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to all involved parties. She argued that doing so saves employees from conjuring up their own assumptions or interpretations of what the change means. This way, organizations can systematically control the narrative of the change, making the implementation process smoother.

Community Learning: Cross-Pollinating Ideas

Kelly's long experience in Lean extends back to her engagement in learning communities in the '80s. These included companies such as Coca-Cola, Medtronics, and Textron, where they used benchmarking to cross-pollinate ideas and share innovative approaches. Her constant need for knowledge saw her grow from a black belt position to a VP of Six Sigma, and then elevated to operational excellence for the entire company. Her interactions with influential figures like John Shook and Dave Lagozo, among others, broadened her perspectives and enhanced her Lean expertise.

Ingraining Lean Culture in Unique Organizations

As diversified as Textron was, Kelly found it crucial to implement Lean principles and ensure that the company remained efficient across its various product lines. She navigated through challenges of creating standardized work systems in different settings, considering the uniqueness of each product line. In her later role at Union Pacific, focusing on the company's unique culture was crucial in ensuring the Lean culture took root and thrived. Often, employees resist change because of unfamiliarity with new processes. However, a carefully tailored Lean system can trigger understanding and acceptance, leading to increased effectiveness.

The Art of Balancing Goals

While discussing the book, the conversation transitioned into an intriguing discussion about goals. Whether it was in a hospital setting or in an automobile sector, the importance of aligning the company's goals was unmistakable. In Lean thinking, safety, quality, delivery, and cost are common goals, regardless of the industry. This balance of strategic speed and operational speed keeps the organization focused on achieving its milestones while maintaining its commitment to quality output.

Highlighting the Value-Driven Purpose

The need for a clear and value-driven purpose is fundamental in implementing Lean changes. Kelly and Shook defined their purpose for writing the book as reaching the hands of as many people as possible. A purpose-driven approach helps set the tone for the rest of the process and ensures that all stakeholders are aligned to a common goal. Besides, capturing the purpose in a clear, concise statement facilitates communication and often avails a reference point for the team during the implementation process.

No Shortage of Recognition

When it comes to rewards during the implementation of Lean changes, Kelly's approach leaned more towards recognition. Acknowledging the effort of individuals in the change process can spur motivation more than the extrinsic rewards. Recognition, according to Kelly, plays a significant role in employee engagement and fostering the intrinsic motivation necessary for sustainable change.

In A Nutshell

D. Lynn Kelly's wealth of experience and insights on Lean organizational change provide a beneficial roadmap for any company looking to make sustainable improvements. By considering the unique complexities of individual organizations, using effective two-way communication, and encouraging intrinsic motivation through recognition rather than rewards, the path to efficient and lasting organizational change becomes clear. Dedicated to getting the art and science of change into as many hands as possible, Kelly aims to provide a detailed and easily accessible resource aiding those at the front lines of Lean changes.


Automated Transcript (Not Guaranteed to be Defect Free)

Mark Graban: Well, hi everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Our guest today is D Lynn Kelly. She is an author writing with John Shook, who you probably know. He's been a guest on this podcast many times.

Mark Graban: The new book is called Change Questions a Playbook for Effective and Lasting organizational change. So before I tell you a little bit more about Lynn, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

D. Lynn Kelley: Thanks Mark, it's nice to be here. I'm fine.

Mark Graban: Yeah. Glad you're here. Congratulations on the launch of the book. And that's going to be kind of the launching point for a lot of our conversation here today. But let me tell you more about Lynn.

Mark Graban: She currently serves as an advisor to BBH Capital Partners. That's following a career highlighted by different leadership roles in engineering, supply chain and continuous improvements in various industries. Lynn retired from Union Pacific Railroad in 2018. So there at Union Pacific she was Senior Vice president of Supply chain and continuous improvement. She was also the executive co owner of the company's innovation program.

Mark Graban: Prior to that she was VP of Operational Excellence, an officer, and a member of the executive leadership team at Textron. Saline has a PhD in evaluation and research. She taught undergraduate and graduate statistics courses. And before that, she held positions of executive vice president and chief operating officer of Doctors Hospital in Detroit and nearby Detroit. I have to mention that Lynn grew up in the same town I grew up in.

Mark Graban: I can't believe that Livonia, Michigan. Not where I was born. I was born in Ohio, which I don't brag about to the folks in Michigan. Were you?

D. Lynn Kelley: I was born in Indiana. I'm a Hoosier, but my parents moved there when I was one. So really a Michigander.

Mark Graban: Michigander. And I do prefer saying Michigander over Michiganian. I know there is sometimes controversy over that.

D. Lynn Kelley: Exactly. Well, we won't engage in the controversy.

Mark Graban: On your podcast, but good to speak to another. Gosh, I don't even know Livonia-ite.

D. Lynn Kelley: Yeah, let's do that. Well let's create it. Oh, Livonian or Livonia-ite. It sounds like a disease. Almost.

Mark Graban: Livonian.

D. Lynn Kelley: I think that sounds very state-worthy. Right? It sounds like it could even be an important country. Okay, we'll stop.

Mark Graban: Right? Well it's an important topic and an important book. And before we talk more specifically about the book, Lynn, with all the different things you've done, different industries in different phases of your career, I always like to ask people know, it's good to hear your story, your Lean origin story, what words you would even frame as you frame it, as you tell that.

D. Lynn Kelley: You know, I just listened to one of your podcast guests where she talked about her early Lean involvement was Dr. Deming. And I got to say, can I say it now, a.

Mark Graban: Deming. Some people say Deming disciple, Deming-ite, groupie…

D. Lynn Kelley: Don't go there.

Mark Graban: Anyway, so Dr. Deming, how did you get exposed to him?

D. Lynn Kelley: So I was in undergrad, and I was exposed to it. At that point, I was at the hospital, and then I tried to apply some of those principles at the hospital. I was a few years later, because then when I was in my Master's program, we actually had a semester. It was a lockstep program, and it was automotive, primarily because it's all Detroit. I was one of the few kind of non automotive folks.

D. Lynn Kelley: But we spent three weeks at Toyota in Japan and studying way back in the 80s, right, studying what they were doing. And I remember watching we were on one of the walks, and we were watching a production experience, and one of the GM guys said to the Ford guy, we'll never compete with this. And I thought, wow, what is this? So I took it back at that point with the undergrad and the grad, and then Dr. Deming's influence, I took it to healthcare, and it was written up as one of the first examples of Lean, what was not called lean back then, but Lean now in healthcare.

D. Lynn Kelley: And so then that kind of got me hooked. And then, weirdly, I got the degree in evaluation and research, which is a lot of stats, and I did my dissertation, statistical dissertation, which takes me five minutes to say, so I won't tell you the title of my dissertation. But because Deming was I mean, we're talking deming was a statistician, so I got the degree and then he worked at the Census Bureau Bureau. And I did a postdoc at the Census Bureau. And then I just decided, okay, enough of this kind of worshiping Deming thing anyway.

D. Lynn Kelley: But honestly, I still go back to his drive out fear and all of those things. So he had a great influence, I think, on a lot of people and a lot of industries.

Mark Graban: Yeah, I think the need the same calls to action or the same 14 points are very much needed, I think, especially, at least for one, in healthcare today. I mean, Dr. Deming deeply influenced a lot of people that we would consider the founders of modern healthcare quality and patient safety movements, don Berwick and others who were directly mentored or taught by Dr. Deming. Lucian Leap comes to mind as, yeah.

D. Lynn Kelley: No, I agree with you. And then even remember when Joint Commission put in control chart criteria in their standards. And at that point, I was teaching stats, and they didn't know anybody in healthcare who knew about control charts. So they hired me to go around the country throughout a whole summer. I went from state to state, and they'd bring these groups together, and I would explain to people in the room what is a control chart and how does it apply to healthcare?

D. Lynn Kelley: A lot of stuff happening back then.

Mark Graban: I'm curious, as you recall, how did that opportunity to go spend the three weeks with Toyota even come to be.

D. Lynn Kelley: Well, this is a lockstep program done through Michigan State and every class every year. It's a two year program. They held 30 spots, ten for GM, ten for Ford, ten for Chrysler, and then they had the rest of their spots for other people. And then they really focused on everybody would have to take three weeks vacation in the summer, and they told you up front, and they went to a different country and studied different things every year. And ours was Japan, and then we spent a little time in Korea and looked at the automotive industry.

D. Lynn Kelley: Then, you know, for the few people that weren't in automotive, I think they farmed me off to a hospital for at some period of time. So, yeah, it was what a remarkable experience. And we were even when we went to Toyota, and I don't even know the name of the professor, but we were taught with a translator for a morning by one of the professors who everybody who was doing things at Toyota went through his courses. And I bet it was somebody famous. I mean, I bet it's somebody I would recognize their name now.

D. Lynn Kelley: But back then, I had no frame of reference, so it was just.

Mark Graban: Mean. I'm trying to think of that. I'd have no idea if the timing would even line up, but was it Professor Ishikawa?

D. Lynn Kelley: I know that's what I'm thinking. I think it was somebody big, because they told us, this is the guy, this is the guy. But I didn't know till years later, like, oh, I bet it was somebody important. That's so cool that to have sat in that classroom. It was great.

D. Lynn Kelley: I do remember a little story he told us. It was so funny because afterwards, that seemed to be the thing that all the automotive folks glommed onto. But one of the things he said was, you got to be careful who you sell your cars to, because the only people that want to buy American cars are the Mafia in Japan. And then he said, you got to be careful who you're selling to. I thought that was an interesting point that really hit the automotive guys are going.

Mark Graban: There'S an old essay Dr. Deming had written. I think it's called notes on a hospital stay where he was the patient. And it's about a four page article pointing out some of the different systems issues that he was observing and coming across. And I can link to that in the show notes, but my recollection of it, and it seems like it would be on brand for Dr.

Mark Graban: Deming was that he was being, if you will, hard on the system, but understanding of like, people were doing their best efforts.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right? And I'm sure you way back, I'm sure you saw the studies that said people have no ability, because they're not medical professionals, to evaluate the actual care they're giving. So it's how often their waste baskets are emptied and cleanliness of the room. And a lot of times that's what healthcare the surrogate for good hospital care is the friendliness of the employees. Things that are not directly related to medical care.

D. Lynn Kelley: But that's interesting. I didn't even know that about Demi. I want to try to find that.

Mark Graban: Well, you're going to link I will share it with you and the audience. But no, I think what you're referring to on that customer service evaluation, I've heard that that applies to plumbers or any technical trade. No offense to any physicians working to compare you to plumbers, but if we don't understand how to evaluate, like when someone's done installing exactly the dishwasher, your furnace only assume they've done a good job. I can evaluate the customer experience, and then it's only if it starts leaking two days afterwards. Like, okay, I guess that wasn't done correctly.

D. Lynn Kelley: You're right. Exactly.

Mark Graban: But then tell me a little bit more about bringing those ideas into healthcare. And you might have been one of the first somebody said a statement. I think a lot of us doing work in healthcare today here, patients are not cars, right? Yeah, right. I mean, it's true, but what do we do with it's?

Mark Graban: Sort of meant to say, like, hey, go away. Don't bring these ideas from the auto industry. I'm curious what kind of reactions or successes you had.

D. Lynn Kelley: Yeah, well, and also in education. I'm just going to springboard over there for a second because you reminded me that patient is not know when we all were identifying when I was a professor and everybody now was when you're in Michigan, you can't help but be brought into some of these things. I no longer live in Michigan. But back then, a lot of your students from the automotive industry and they were introducing ideas. If you weren't talking about Lean and TQM and all of that control charts, they're going to say, well, what you're behind?

D. Lynn Kelley: And when we talked about customer service and in education I remember discussions well who are our customers? It's kind of the same thing issue with healthcare because well it's the students but is it the students because do they get whatever they want? Is our whole goal to make them some of them want easy A's right it's very interesting it's not as straightforward when you're in some of these service industries healthcare has the same issue who is the customer? Is it the patient? Is it the insurance company that pays the bill?

D. Lynn Kelley: Is it the doctor who is the customer? And it's nuanced but you know what? I think very few things are straightforward and the skill is to understand the nuance and not to look for black and white, but look for all those grays and try to build something around the grays because it's just an easy out to go black and white and just have these little rules that we rigidly follow. It's really important to stay in the space where we really understand. I just went off on a tangent, sorry.

D. Lynn Kelley: But.

Mark Graban: The beauty of a long podcast is we have time to do that. It's okay.

D. Lynn Kelley: Okay, cool. Good.

Mark Graban: But bringing it back maybe I interrupted you then, and bringing it back to some of the early efforts in hospitals and how people reacted to ideas from other settings like manufacturing.

D. Lynn Kelley: Well, you hit a nail on the head back then. There were no examples. So there was the constant. You have a hard enough you know, if you work in manufacturing, you have two plants that make a very similar product. And you try to take a best practice from one plant to the other factory or plant and they're going to say, well, you don't understand.

D. Lynn Kelley: That's not how we do it. And we're not like them. So, so much so that I found working in healthcare was it's not just you were not a car kind of issue, but it was the whole thing of look, that doesn't relate to us at all. And I think the other thing is they view in many ways it's correct, but so much of what they do as an art, and that every day is different and every surgery is different. And now we have a lot more data that says the more standardization we could do, the better.

D. Lynn Kelley: But I think there were a lot of people even more so back then that prided themselves, especially in medicine, on the art of medicine. So anything that comes through as standardization or standard work or any type of steps was difficult. You had an easier time with five s. They could understand if everything's in the same place, fine. But I think some of those other concepts were much more difficult back then.

D. Lynn Kelley: And now we have examples, we have successes and some really good successes. So I think it makes it easier.

Mark Graban: Easier, yeah.

D. Lynn Kelley: And I think it's like yeah, but still not right.

Mark Graban: To what degree? And maybe this is a good segue to talk about questions around change and engaging people, or the acceptance of change. The title of the book again, change questions. Yeah. Even in healthcare.

Mark Graban: Maybe just detour on this a little bit for the talk. People will use this phrase, evidence based, evidence based medicine, evidence based practice. There is growing evidence out there of, let's say, for example, doing things a certain way with the management of central lines can basically lead to zero central line infections for very long periods of time, if not forever. But not every hospital does those things that way today.

D. Lynn Kelley: That's right.

Mark Graban: Let me try to frame it as a question. I mean, people are complicated, and I think that's true and we have to navigate that. What are some of the other barriers? Okay, well, we have evidence people should accept it now.

D. Lynn Kelley: But no, don't.

Mark Graban: Why is that?

D. Lynn Kelley: Well, that was one of my AHAs and I've listened to some of your mistakes podcasts. And in one of my biggest mistakes, that's where I came across this whole idea, I rediscovered Michael Hammer's 2060 change curve. And let me back up on that a little bit because before even Michael Hammer, I mean, way back and I forgot the year, I've got it somewhere in my research, but somebody discovered this and then there was like lots of replications of this. 20% of the people are open to something, 60% in the middle are kind of neutral and then the 20% at the end are not open to whatever it is. And then people started applying this researchers to a lot of different things, like your acceptance of a speaker who's speaking to you if you go to a class or lots of HR, even just each performance management.

D. Lynn Kelley: And it started being applied to a lot of different things. And then some researchers a little few years later said well, let's see, really, which ones does it really fit with? And it turns out that the 2060 curve fits so well with change. It really does. And what I have found again and again is that even if people will benefit from the change, there will still be approximately 20% who's going to they're going to sit, they're not, they're not going to be open to it initially.

D. Lynn Kelley: Their gut reaction, first reaction, there's going to be the majority of people, 60% are going to be neutral until they see successes. So that's how I explain that phenomenon, is that some people, just by the nature of their personality or whatever, tend to be a little bit resistant to change. And I have to jump in though, too, because I tend to take the shortcut and call them resisters. And yet in the research there's been a lot of stuff out there that says too don't label those folks because they are just sometimes loving what they do and the way they do it. And they think it's really good and they don't want you to mess with it.

D. Lynn Kelley: Or they really super care about something and they don't want you to mess with that. So for change, people who really do change, there's a cautionary note. Let's not jump to a shortcut of calling them resistors. But my focus though, is the fact that in general you should expect resistance for other reasons too. Nobody wants to be told what to do.

D. Lynn Kelley: Nobody. I don't want to be told what to do. Right. So there's a few reasons I think out there.

Mark Graban: Yeah, I agree with you. I've come to really dislike that labeling. What I often hear is blaming of a leader saying oh well, those people are resistant to change and like well, they might be resisting this change, right? And I think the problem is when then a leader kind of labels or gives up on them or so well, we're going to force them to change, as you put it a couple of minutes ago, if they're not open to the change initially. To me, I'm sorry, that should be the beginning of the conversation, not the end.

D. Lynn Kelley: That's right. What I talk about in the book is what I've learned for myself that really works, is it's all about timing. So if they're resisting this change, fine, let them do what they want. Let's run some pilots and throw them some experience. Let's get the bugs out because the middle 60% is neutral.

D. Lynn Kelley: Who has the loudest voice to pull them over if you mess up, right? If you roll out a change and it doesn't work, and then your work instructions are wrong or all kinds of stuff, so why not just iterate the heck out of it with change agents? And part of one of the change questions has to do with how do we recognize those early successes to start building Hype? Is it little internal podcast? Is it the CEO comes and watches or talks about it?

D. Lynn Kelley: Or what is it? So the neutrals go, wow, that's so we got when we have momentum, like Malcolm Gladwell's tipping point, we get that momentum. Then we can also then tread carefully and work with people that are on the other that final 20%, but really get their feedback on how they can own it. Because we all know once we flip one of those folks, they're our best advocates, right?

Mark Graban: Yeah, they certainly can be. And those become powerful stories.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right.

Mark Graban: I think of I mean, this is an old commercial and an old reference, but the old Life cereal commercial where the kids surprised Mikey likes it.

D. Lynn Kelley: Mikey. Yeah, I forgot all about Mikey.

Mark Graban: Yeah, it's probably on YouTube for people who don't remember that commercial, but everyone's got somebody in the workplace and I'm seeing this through lean improvement. Use the word program with quotes at some point, starting off. It's always a program. It's a thing you're doing. But some of those people that are known to their colleagues as being skeptical of things, maybe connected to something I was going to ask you on the COVID of your book.

Mark Graban: It says in all capitals, no more flavor of the month. Some of the times people are just worn out on, we've been sold all of these exciting sounding things and then it never turns into anything or it doesn't sustain. So I'm done investing.

D. Lynn Kelley: Exactly. Do you blame them?

Mark Graban: No.

D. Lynn Kelley: They're smart, they're rational, they have limited energy. That's why I'm really passionate about we can have the very best solution, but if we don't introduce it in a way that engages people that doesn't have a bunch of errors and we've really thought through what are their frequently asked questions? How do I reward successes? Then? A lot of the research says the probability of success is only 30% to 40%.

D. Lynn Kelley: There's other studies that say maybe a little bit more, but I can't find any study that says anything above 50% success rate for an organizational change. And even if it's 80%, we got to understand we leave damage behind when we fail to sustain a change and everyone damages more until people are just jaded and their rational approach is to say, well, prove it. I'm not changing. This is your 50th time you've asked me. I believed you the first ten.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right. And so we have to respect people to such a degree that we don't think we can keep failing now. We can keep iterating and we can talk about them being a part of the process and the improvement, and we can iterate ourselves. But we cannot just walk away from all of these things and expect there's no fallout.

Mark Graban: Sure. When somebody who is viewed as a skeptic or not going along with things then does get excited about something that really brings those people in the middle along, I think much more quickly.

D. Lynn Kelley: It's the best. I mean, you just love it when that happens. Yeah.

Mark Graban: And I think when you take the time to pun intended, lean in and try to understand people's perspectives and work with them because a lot of times they have legitimate concerns. They're like, well, I don't think this is going to work because of such and such. Take that input, iterate make it better. And now you've made more of an ally than an opponent.

D. Lynn Kelley: That's right.

Mark Graban: Do things like that.

D. Lynn Kelley: Yeah.

Mark Graban: But yeah, it's fascinating though. I was going to ask you maybe there's a little more to say about the flavor of the month problem. I mean, it's so widespread. Like everyone knows the phrase. They know that exists probably in their organization.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right.

Mark Graban: So gosh, it makes me wonder why is that problem still there? Or I guess your book will help people break that cycle if they want to.

D. Lynn Kelley: Yeah. The more I dug into this because I had always been in the Six Sigma lean space early on TQM. But then when I realized when I saw that things didn't sustain the way I wanted them to or you get engaged people, you do a whole thing in a plant and they move equipment and productivity increases and it seems like engagement increases, but then you go back and it's gone. You know what I mean? It's like, wait a minute.

D. Lynn Kelley: But it felt like everybody was there, like, what's going on? Well, then I realized there's a lot more of human psychology that I needed to understand and I just dug deep in the research and with a PhD in evaluation and research, you know, it's my natural inclination and I just dug deep, deep, deep in the research and the human psychology of change. And every time I failed, I would say, okay, this failure, I'm not going to blame them or it or whatever. I'm going to own this. What should I have done differently?

D. Lynn Kelley: And I research the nuances of that particular failure and then would come up with another change question. So basically there are these eleven questions that you really consider. And some of them, like I often could attach what the research says about a probability. Like, for instance, if the infrastructure, like the way that people are rewarded or things like that work against the change initiative, no matter how good that change initiative has, if their performance evaluation is based on something that's counter the Change Initiative. Let's say the Change Initiative takes more time, but it increases customer satisfaction.

D. Lynn Kelley: But they're rewarded on how much time it takes or productivity.

Mark Graban: Right.

D. Lynn Kelley: The thing is that 16% of the time people want to do the change and can't because the infrastructure works against them. So I got to the point with these eleven questions. Some of them are the slam dunks. The top two is always communication and leadership. Those, of course, you have to deal with, but then when you get into some of these other nitty gritty that isn't applicable every time but may be applicable every 10th change, then it's good to consider those things, and then you increase the probability of success.

D. Lynn Kelley: So it's not always the biggies. Back to your question about why do we keep failing? It's not always the biggies. We can have leadership, but no communication, or we could have communication and not leadership support, or we could have communication and leadership, but everything else doesn't support it. There's all those other things.

Mark Graban: Yeah, and it sounds like if we're talking very broadly, there's probably no single root cause to this sustainment gap, the change sustainment. So tell us more about what have you learned about how people can diagnose the situation? I was going to ask you again about John Shook. Like, do we need to start doing an A three?

D. Lynn Kelley: Has he coached you through that process? Yeah. I mean, no. With John. What happened?

D. Lynn Kelley: Well, maybe I should back up and say John's involvement. Should I do that or do you want me to go to sure, yeah.

Mark Graban: Go ahead if you like.

D. Lynn Kelley: Okay, well, so in 2014, John, he's head of the Lean Global Network, and at that point he was involved also. And they saw Lean approaches start and then fail, or start and take a pause or whatever, but then they saw other ones just take off. So they did a global study and they really took a lot of time and they interviewed people at companies and they tried to find out, why are these Lean initiatives failing? And then why are the ones that succeed succeeding? And they came up with many.

D. Lynn Kelley: I bet your audience knows the Lean transformation framework. I mean, if you're involved with Made, Lea has made that a cornerstone of everything that they do. And it's these five categories that you have to consider when you're implementing Lean. Well, what was so interesting is I was implementing not just Lean, but like all kinds of change at textron when I worked for the Chairman and CEO, things like inventory reduction, which was kind of lean, yes, but also in engineering, product and process management, a supply chain portal, all those things where we'd be implementing change. And I had to do like a broader look.

D. Lynn Kelley: And I mentioned the research, and then I came up with some of these. I called them considerations or things to consider every time you implement change. Well, during COVID I was on a board with John, and we had a board call. He and I were talking after on the call, and I said, what are you doing during COVID He said, I'm writing a book. I said, oh, hey, I'm writing a book.

D. Lynn Kelley: What's your book about? He said change. I said, no, mine's about change. Then we decided there's no way we could possibly be writing the change book. Same change book.

D. Lynn Kelley: So we decided to be writing partners. And he would write a chapter every month, and I would write a chapter every month. And then we'd have a call, we'd send it to each other, and we'd give each other feedback. And it only took us two months to realize what the Lean Global Network had done in 2014 with hundreds of organizations globally and come out with their five areas. I had the same five.

D. Lynn Kelley: And then in terms of all independently, right? And then in terms of the nuances within each of the five, I had broken it out a little bit broader. For instance, I had things like, you always need to provide frequently asked questions to your employees if you're going to implement a change, don't let managers make this stuff up. Give your managers and employees the answers. So it turned out that we were writing pretty much the same book, and that's how this came to be.

D. Lynn Kelley: So his influence on me and mine on him, but he had a bigger influence on me because he's just so amazing, was basically really thinking through while we blend these what makes sense. But we found that independently it's so funny. We came up with the same thing. Amazing. Yeah.

Mark Graban: Did you meet John when he was working for Toyota? I met Toyota in the 80s.

D. Lynn Kelley: Well, Textron was affiliated with Lei way back in the 80s. They had put together a small group of companies. There used to be five Coca Cola, Medtronics, Textron, two other ones that they called their learning community. And then what we did is we benchmarked these five companies and they kind of guided us along. I think this is actually the 90s.

D. Lynn Kelley: I'm too far back. It was the that's how I got to know John, because eventually first I was like a black belt, then a master black belt. Then I was a VP of Six Sigma. And then when I was reporting a chairman and CEO, I was operational excellence for the whole company. And at that point, I really was looking for help.

D. Lynn Kelley: And John was was there and helped me and Jim Womack and. Yeah. Dave Lagozo lots of folks back.

Mark Graban: And for people who aren't familiar with mean a pretty varied set of products as a manufacturer. Right. They were part of UTC at the time.

D. Lynn Kelley: Is that no, no, but Bell Helicopters, Cessna Aircraft, EasyGo Golf cars, the largest supplier of automotive fuel tanks in the world, the largest supplier back then of fastening systems in the automotive space in the world mining industry. I was in South Africa. I lived there for a while, working in the mining industry in South Africa and Australia. I mean just a really diverse company. And if you Google Textron, you'll find that they were supposedly the first conglomerate in the country because the guy that started textron was in the textile textron textile industry, and he needed to diversify because textiles were going down.

D. Lynn Kelley: So he just started buying up all these other businesses, gorum silver and put it all together. So it's interesting company, good history, but.

Mark Graban: There'S the opportunity for people in all those different product lines other than maybe the auto parts business of, well, we're different, we're lower volume, we're higher complexity, we're this or that.

D. Lynn Kelley: We're a job.

Mark Graban: Then, you know, I'd love to hear know what the roles or even first off, how you got to be at Union Pacific, where people again, we're different, we're a railroad, a network of railroads, right?

D. Lynn Kelley: Yeah. The largest BNSF and Union Pacific compete to being the largest railroad in the US. But depending on how you measure it 32,000 track miles. But Union Pacific, a recruiter called me, and I've never returned a recruiter call my entire career. And I really love my job with textron, but he left a voice message and said know, a job kind of like, you know, would be a bigger company and the whole bit.

D. Lynn Kelley: And I'd get to be a part of developing it. So it just intrigued me. And I reached out and it turned out it was Union Pacific. And the job was to figure out what Lean looked like for the railroad. Because the chief operating officer came from GE and he was the era parent to be the CEO, and he wanted to use Lean to engage employees to improve the work.

D. Lynn Kelley: These are his words, to improve. He always said, engage employees to improve the work and to improve customer. So I went in for the interview and oh my gosh, I was like, I want to work for this company Omaha, Nebraska. And I was in Providence, Rhode Island, and I thought, oh boy, well would I want to go in the Midwest again? But oh my gosh, well, and I ended up loving Omaha.

D. Lynn Kelley: But it was such a challenge to you've got 42,000 employees who are maybe a CBL supervisor every six weeks, never under one roof. Maybe you get ten people while they're waiting for a train to pick them up and take them to the next spot under a roof. I just trying to visualize that. But it's a great company with a great culture and people were thirsty for it and it worked. I mean it's still in place today.

D. Lynn Kelley: We started it in 2010, 2011 and the results were overwhelming. I mean just unbelievably positive and linked with operational results too.

Mark Graban: It seems like some of the same frameworks we talk about goals or purpose, same ideas that would apply in the auto sector or in a hospital. I always come back and think of safety, quality, delivery cost.

D. Lynn Kelley: Exactly.

Mark Graban: Same goals, right?

D. Lynn Kelley: You would hope, right? No, same goals. So the thing about Union Pacific, it's over 150 year old company. It was founded by Abraham Lincoln to unite Union, the east and the West Pacific when the north and south was divided. So I mean it was a political move and it started with the military know, command and control.

D. Lynn Kelley: It was very much a military model and they're very proud of who they are. And I understand mean the mission is to build America, we build America and it's interesting to go to a place where people are so very proud of who they are and what they are and then try to say yeah, but you're not perfect and there's some other ways. So it was very interesting. And then the other thing is people go there and never leave. And back then up until just a couple of years ago they still had a pension plan so everybody had a lot of years of service.

D. Lynn Kelley: So to try to get people to think differently when they had only worked at Union Pacific their whole lives, 40 years sometimes run across 30 40 year employees. It was amazing.

Mark Graban: Yeah. So for all the things that sound familiar in terms of goals and the way people react to things, it sounds like there was a real unique situation there. I bet the idea of standardized work was a change challenge because people are left to their own for better or for worse. And I've seen this in healthcare. People take pride in figuring out, they say, well no one really trained me how to do everything.

Mark Graban: I figured it out and that's understandable pride but sometimes can get in the way.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right? Exactly. Same thing. I mean you just do what we did in manufacturing. You get people together and you say you guys are the best of the best.

D. Lynn Kelley: You all do it your own way. We're going to iterate, we're going to experiment. You can try different pieces of each other's process. Let's see what works. So yeah, you get through it but it does take time and you got to really be patient.

D. Lynn Kelley: But when you get those successes they're just great. And I don't think you can assume and there's a story about this in the book, but you cannot assume that just because it works here you can plug and play. You have to understand the context of every single location and respect the people and let them be a part of the solution. Because what they help create, they support.

Mark Graban: Yeah, right. And the time it takes to have those conversations, it takes time. Right. And I think of a Toyotaism that I think you and I both have probably heard John Shook say a lot this idea of go slow, to go fast.

D. Lynn Kelley: Exactly.

Mark Graban: I think there's a lot of application to change situations. John Cotter's change model, which I think maps well to a lot of what we're talking about here. Cotter talk about the illusion of progress. And this is where you can try to force change. You can try to tell people, OK, I'm sick of these meetings.

Mark Graban: We just got to standardize.

D. Lynn Kelley: Just get out, just do it.

Mark Graban: You have to do it this way. People may give the appearance of going along, but boy, and especially with a railroad or in an operating room where people are not under the watchful eye of a supervisor, constantly, people will say they're on board, and then kind of say, well, no, well, no one's looking, so I'm going to do it my way.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right.

Mark Graban: I think there's no shortcuts to mandate change.

D. Lynn Kelley: And you just reminded me I know everybody loves Thinking Fast and Slow, the book I've edited a lot of times, I still don't understand it all. It's so deep and so good. But it's kind of like one of the things they talk about in Thinking Fast and Slow is that when your brain can't deal with something or doesn't want to, it substitutes something else in its place and then you believe it's there. And when you were just talking, what I realized, and I never put this together before, but the whole idea of going fast, you have to step back and say, but what do I really want out of this? What do I want?

D. Lynn Kelley: I want it to sustain and I want it to be there a year from now or two years from now. And then we can't substitute that goal of wanting it to stay around for an implementation model that will suboptimize that. Right. And that's the one thing. When I went to Union Pacific, I said these words, and it's in the book.

D. Lynn Kelley: I said, if you want to go fast fast, I'm not your person. If you want to go without engaging employees, I'm not your this is from a Harvard Business article about strategic speed and operational speed. I said I believe in strategic speed and it means that I want it to sustain and I want employees to embrace it. And I promise you we will go a little slower in the beginning, but three years from now it will still be going strong. But if we manage to a timeline that's in 90 days, everybody will be trained in 60 days after that, you're taking a chance there.

D. Lynn Kelley: And that Harvard Business Review article and I can send you the link for your folks that are on the phone. It's an old one. I discovered it through another, yet another one of my mistakes. It just basically said that they studied 340 companies globally, and most of them did operational speed, which they named as following a timeline, implementation timeline, no matter what. And success was measured by implementing according to the timeline versus a few companies that did what they coined strategic speed, which just meant that we have our goal in mind, we know what we're going to do, but the timeline can be adjusted because we're going to measure regularly and make sure it's delivering the value that we intend it to deliver.

D. Lynn Kelley: And so I have latched on that then from way back. And then I've always said that we're going to define the value really well and we're going to measure it. And another study that said that if it's going to fail, you're going to see it in the first month, you could detect it. So we'll measure early.

Mark Graban: Let's fix them and go on and adjust early. Yeah, absolutely, go on. Yeah. And there's a real art to boy, if we're trying something new, is it not working or not working yet?

D. Lynn Kelley: Oh, yeah.

Mark Graban: How do you try to navigate that?

D. Lynn Kelley: Yeah, I agree with you. So sometimes and I talked about we replaced the wrong metric for the one that our mind substitutes, the easy concept. And I agree with you, there are some things that move, safety metrics move slowly. If you're talking about reportables, customer sat is hard to get real time metrics if you change a process. There's a lot of examples in the book, what we did at the railroad, but what we really did is we knew ultimately what the big metrics were that we were going to move maybe the top line metrics or whatever, and we identified those, but we found ways always to get interim measurements.

D. Lynn Kelley: And it might be just a little like after we implement a change, we call the customer and we say, compare how it was before to now, better, worse, the same. Just these quick hits. But I believe in managing with data. You manage with your heart in many ways when it comes to engagement, but we've got a CFO to convince that this stuff is working. And I'm not going to have some CFO come to me two years later and say, I'm pulling the plug, it doesn't work.

D. Lynn Kelley: I'm going to have so much data that's real, that's robust. And so in the interim, I collect whatever I can. I don't put in extensive systems. I do easy, quick, but real stuff that I can trust. But I never substitute number of people trained for number of people trained as the cheapest substitute ever.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right? We think we're successful. Oh, we trained 500 people. Are they using it? Are they using it correctly?

Mark Graban: How effective was the training?

D. Lynn Kelley: How effective was the training? How effective is the actual results? So we have to really think about that's. One of the change questions, what is the value? Define it.

D. Lynn Kelley: Define it, and then a little bit later, measure it. You got to measure the value. Not an easy substitute. I'm sorry. I'm on a rampant but energy into the planning to do that, then shame on us, because our employees deserve better.

D. Lynn Kelley: They deserve it that we think this stuff through and we give them something that we can measure, we can work, we can hear their voices. We've got a conduit to find out what's not working. We fix it right away. We've got to do that for people. And then once you know, it's like smooth sailing after just a very short period of.

Mark Graban: And the book again, our guest today, D. Lynn Kelley. The book is Change Questions, written as she described the collaboration partnership with John Shook. We're not going to I think clearly in a conversation like this, go through all of the questions. I encourage people to check out the book.

Mark Graban: There's a digital workbook that's available that's meant to be used with the book, but the digital workbook would give people a chance to kind of get a sense of what's there and get the book for the Fuller story. And I love how the book emphasizes two way communication. Right. And I guess that's the point of a question. We're stating a question, and we're actually listening to a response, not just pushing information.

Mark Graban: But one of the questions, it seems like a question very early on, I think is an interesting one. You used the word value a minute ago, but this question of what's your value driven purpose? I think that's a really fascinating question. I know what all the words mean, but why those words? Why that question?

D. Lynn Kelley: Yeah. So it's very important that people understand the purpose of why they're being asked to change. And when I was digging into this I love this, I found a study. It was done a little while ago, but it basically said out of all the groups in the workforce now today, it was done, like, maybe ten years ago. It said that the millennials have the strongest need to understand purpose for whatever we're asking them to do.

D. Lynn Kelley: And so if we think that purpose is going to go away, it's not. It's important to define purpose. And the other thing that I love, which I think we can all relate to, is every phase of life is known for something. The two year olds and two year olds are known for being terrible. Twos.

D. Lynn Kelley: Right. But the three year olds, the thing that three year olds are known for is, do you know what do three year olds always do a thousand times a day?

Mark Graban: Why?

D. Lynn Kelley: Yes, they ask why.

Mark Graban: I was kind of guessing. I don't have a three year old.

D. Lynn Kelley: Okay, but you got it. Good guess. You got it. So three year olds ask why on the average of eight times a day, every day. They don't take weekends off because they are seeking to understand what they see and feel and sense in their environment.

D. Lynn Kelley: And that need is so basic that everybody has that need. So when we decide we're going to make a change, we have to define the purpose. And it doesn't take long. If it's self evident, it takes ten minutes. I mean, you just write down one sentence.

D. Lynn Kelley: I say don't wordsmith it one sentence. And then we often have to get initial buy in to change. So you've got that purpose statement and you can go to leadership and you just say, look, this is the purpose of this change. Are you aligned? Are you in on this?

D. Lynn Kelley: And then we really can get alignment. And even with our team that's implementing the change, make sure we all understand it the same. And if it takes us time, then it shows how much we needed to do it. For most of us, we just know the answer, we put it down, we make sure people understand it, but then that's front and center. This is our purpose.

D. Lynn Kelley: We make decisions based on the purpose.

Mark Graban: Yeah, you bring up an interesting point. There's always these surveys that compare across generations. Yeah, and I'm always a little skeptical of like, I don't know, whatever the generation is being pointed to. I don't know if that generation is different or if that just is the youngest generation being surveyed at a given time. Where I'm Gen X and the boomers, when people from different generations were young, they may have felt that same sense of purpose, but then maybe had it drummed out of them of like although that doesn't matter, it's just a job, right?

Mark Graban: Or whatever mindsets back to Dr. Deming, if they've been robbed of the opportunity to have pride and joy in their work, maybe they say purpose murpous, who cares? But maybe when they were younger it mattered. And how do we keep that going? Because I think that is powerful.

Mark Graban: We would want to sustain that need and delivering on that need for purpose.

D. Lynn Kelley: I think I'll get off my no, I love love. And I love the Deming reference again, because I think it even affected me the way I raised my kids, because when he talked about if you rob somebody of their intrinsic motivation, then it's all about extrinsic rewards and then they're no longer motivated by their internal self. And so the whole idea is and then even in the change questions, what I found in some of the research, it says, so what are your incentives to have people change? And what I ended up doing, and I think it's because of Demi's influence, is I focused on recognition, which will help with intrinsic motivation rather than talking about external incentives. And I do have like when I had a lot of readers of the book, John, and I sent it out to all of our dearest friends and they all read it and gave us they ripped it.

D. Lynn Kelley: Know, one of the things I got back was, well, what about incentives? What about chachkis and gifts and T shirts and coffee cups? Everybody loves those. Given all of that, I gave a throwaway line in the book and said, well, if you want to do it instead of go ahead. But recognition works better.

D. Lynn Kelley: Because it's true, people, I do believe in that. I believe that intrinsic motivation is really super important and we have to be careful we don't rob people of that.

Mark Graban: Yeah, and it's funny, maybe it just sounds better, but you always hear rewards and recognition. Yeah, it's always in that order. In my experience, you can flip those, like with recognition and intrinsic motivation and purpose. And I think especially with continuous improvement in healthcare, you don't need the financial rewards. And then there's things back to deming lessons.

Mark Graban: Quotas and targets can cause more problems than they might be solving.

D. Lynn Kelley: Agreed 100%. I'm big on that. I really do believe in it.

Mark Graban: So maybe one last question as we wrap up and I'll put links in the show notes. The website is changequestions. Net, correct? Okay, I was double checking. You got it not the wrong something.

Mark Graban: Changequestionsaltogether. Net. A book project is a pretty large scale change initiative for the authors and everybody involved. And when you think of back to purpose and value driven purpose, did you ask yourself that question for this book? Or if I'm asking you, how would you answer that?

D. Lynn Kelley: I love that because we did. And no one's ever asked me that before. So when John and I decided to join forces, which meant we had to scrap everything we wrote before, like we started all over, we had to start over and we said, OK, well, what is our purpose? And what we said was to get this in as many hands as possible. And so because of that, then it was not to make money and it wasn't even to sell books.

D. Lynn Kelley: So what we did to get this in as many hands as possible is on. You mentioned changequestions. Net, the digital workbook, it's a fillable PDF. It is so sweet. It's free.

D. Lynn Kelley: It's free and you can share it with your friends and you can share it with your teams and you can use it because that way we fulfill our purpose of getting it in as many hands as possible. And if people want to buy the book or listen to the audiobook or the Kindle version, you can do that, but you may not need it. Especially if one person has the book and they have a whole team working with them, everybody else can have a digital workbook. So that was the purpose of writing the book. Because for me, I felt like I learned all these lessons the hard way through all my mistakes and failures.

D. Lynn Kelley: And then you think, well, when I die, it's gone. And I just thought, Why? And there are a lot of good change methodologies out there, really good, and I love them, but this is a little different. And it's questions instead of it engages the person who's doing the change in a fluid, questioning ownership mindset so that whatever questions they answer and however they answer them, the changes customized. The approach to the change is customized for that particular change, which would be different, maybe, from the next change they implement.

D. Lynn Kelley: So anyway, that was the purpose. Thanks for asking that. I love it.

Mark Graban: Thank you for sharing that. I'm not surprised. You had already been thinking through that. So that's great to hear. So, again, the book is available now.

Mark Graban: Congratulations on that, Lynn. It's available also in an audiobook. So I see it here as paperback, kindle audiobook. Did you and John each read parts of the book yourselves, or how did.

D. Lynn Kelley: That we read our own parts. I read the case study, and he did John's notes at the end of every chapter, which reflected upon the chapter. And then we had a voice actor read we have a forward by the CEO of Union Pacific Railroad. And so he sounds really important and sounds like a CEO. And then we had another voice actor read the Theory, the regular book.

D. Lynn Kelley: So, yeah, like, four of us.

Mark Graban: So I hope people check that out. I have a hypothesis that people who listen to podcasts might also listen to audiobooks.

D. Lynn Kelley: Oh, that makes sense. Maybe. Okay, that makes sense. I had somebody tell me they listened to it on Double speed twice, and I don't quite understand that, but should.

Mark Graban: They listen slow to understand fast instead of who knows?

D. Lynn Kelley: I didn't ask, but they said, yeah, I listened to the book twice. I said, wow, that took a long time. No, I listened to it double time twice. Okay.

Mark Graban: They say, I know people who listen to things 1.5 speed that the brain can really understand faster than we generally talk. But I'm sure people are listening, and there's opportunities to pause and think through those questions. Not only how would they answer them, but how would they use those questions in their work. So it's great stuff. Thank you for being a guest.

Mark Graban: You mentioned mistakes and my favorite mistake podcast enough. Be careful. I might ask you to come be a guest there, too.

D. Lynn Kelley: Well, I certainly have made the mistake, so I qualify big one.

Mark Graban: And if you're willing to talk about them, and I'm sure you have, of course, great reflections. So I will follow up with UFO.

D. Lynn Kelley: Okay.

Mark Graban: Again, D. Lynn Kelly, Livonia connections, and great to be able to read the book. And thank you for being here to talk about it. Really, really enjoyed it.

D. Lynn Kelley: Thank you, Mark. I enjoyed it, too.


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Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker, and podcaster with experience in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. Mark's new book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. He is also the author of Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, and the anthology Practicing Lean. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.

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